Abstract
This chapter proposes the model f governance as a multidimensional process of the interdependence of problematization and de-problematization. But it starts by summarizing the main differences between inter-actionalist and trans-actionalist understandings of the policy process. Taking this further, a political semiotics understanding of governance is proposed that distinguishes six interdependent forms of governance, based on the semiotic model of communication of Roman Jakobson, the cultural semiotics of Juri Lotman, and the Essex school of post-structuralist political theory of hegemony (Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and others): governance as threat, governance as stoicism, governance as cynicism, governance as hierarchy, deliberative governance, and metagovernance. Also the methodological consequences of the political semiotic theory of governance are spelled out, and a dialogical understanding of theory in case study research is proposed for the three case studies of failure governance and governance failure that follow in Chaps. 11–13. All of them are related to the governance of COVID-19 crisis of 2020–2022 that could be seen as a wicked problem.
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Notes
- 1.
David Howarth is a direct student of Laclau and also professor in the Department of Government at the University of Essex. He has extensively widened the methodological reach of post-structuralist political theory (most influentially with Jason Glynos—e.g., Glynos & Howarth, 2007).
- 2.
The abbreviation POSDCORB stands for Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Co-ordinating, Reporting, Budgeting. It comes from the memo “Notes on the Theory of Organization” (Gulick, 1937), which was first presented in 1935 and where these principles of well-oiled administration were defined.
- 3.
I follow here the most frequently used reference source to the eight-volume Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Peirce 1931–1966). It is usually referred to by giving the number of the volume and the number of the fragment cited (CP 5.189, e.g., is fragment number 189 in volume 5).
- 4.
See also ibid., 21, note 1 for various references on COVID-19 crisis as a wicked problem.
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Selg, P., Sootla, G., Klasche, B. (2023). A Theory of Governance as Problematization and De-problematization. In: A Relational Approach to Governing Wicked Problems. Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24034-8_10
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